Rangers defeat left David Gray ‘hugely frustrated’

Last night’s defeat to Rangers under the Easter Road lights left Hibs head coach ‘hugely frustrated’

Danilo gave the visitors the lead within the first five minutes, but despite the best efforts of Gray’s men they couldn’t find an equaliser.

Hibs’ luck in-front of goal was summed up in the dying moments of the game as Jamie McGrath’s penalty was saved by Jack Butland.

When speaking after the game, Gray gave his thoughts on the performance.

He said: “The result is hugely frustrating, probably because I thought it was from our own doing to be honest. It wasn’t through a lack of effort of fight, though.

“It might sound silly, but I thought we started the game on the front foot and created a couple of chances, which got the crowd behind us. We then gave the ball away poorly and gave them a goal at the start of the game.

“We tried to get back into the game, but I thought we lacked a wee bit of end product and quality in the final third. We’ve been creating a lot of chances in games recently and it was the last action that let us down, but today we didn’t create as much as I’d like. Saying that we had two clear cut chances to get back in it; we missed from a yard, and we missed a penalty.

“Those opportunities probably make it tougher to take because it’s not as if I think they ran over the top of us or were better than us in every department. I thought we restricted them to very little chances. It’s a tough one to take.”

As Gray mentioned, Hibs had two golden opportunities to put the ball in the back of the net, but ultimately passed them by, something he believes has been the story of the season so far.

“Today was about big moments. We got a penalty which is an opportunity to get back into the game, but like I say, if you take that out of it, we didn’t really do enough to have enough clear-cut chances to win the game.

“Now you are playing against top level opposition in this league, which makes it harder to create chances, but when they come you need to take them. That has let us down this season and I reminded the players of that, but I’ve also told them the quality is there, I see it every day in training.

“Sometimes it’s a bit of belief or confidence that needs to come. The biggest thing for me is that the players keep putting themselves in those positions, and they will continue to do that.”